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Thubelihle Mabhena Chronicle Reporter
A NEW Bulawayo secondary school, Prestige High, in Cowdray Park suburb, is set to open its doors in January next year. The school’s founder, Turnup Enterprises director Sam Madzingira, said the school would have nine blocks with three classes each.

The school, which will go up to A-Level, will accommodate up to 720 pupils.

Madzingira said construction was progressing well with the teachers’ staff rooms, headmaster/deputy headmaster’s office, reception, pupils’ toilets and three classroom blocks already complete. The school’s construction project is being bankrolled by Madzingira’s Turnup study pack.

The founder said they started building the school in September 2013 and over $300,000 had been used so far for the construction. It will be complete by January.

Madzingira added that the country’s economic meltdown had delayed the construction.

“If not for the biting economic meltdown in the country, we would’ve completed construction by this time. However, by January next year, the school will officially open,” said Madzingira. “Cowdray Park has one secondary school and most of the children go to Luveve Secondary School. That’s why Luveve has the largest number of pupils in Bulawayo.”

Following a decade long economic malaise that crippled most sectors of the economy, the once glorious Zimbabwe’s education system was not spared, resulting in a biting shortage of school infrastructure.

Zimbabwe has 8,500 schools dotted around the country and the shortage is largely experienced in rural areas where children walk long distances to reach the nearest school.

Deputy Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Professor Paul Mavhima, in September said the country needs 1,252 primary and 87 secondary schools to ease congestion at existing schools.

He said the schools would eliminate hot seating, reduce distance walked by some pupils and provide an appropriate learning environment for children facing difficulties under satellite schools. To remove hot seating, Deputy Minister Mavhima said the country needed at least 349 schools.

Bulawayo has the least number of schools with 17 primary and 14 secondary schools while Mashonaland West has the highest number of schools operating under satellite recording 210 primary and 159 secondary schools.